Bad Man

ARTICLES ABOUT BAD MAN BY DATE - PAGE 2

By V. Dion Haynes. V. Dion Haynes is a national correspondent based in the Tribune's Los Angeles bureau | August 15, 1999

I've had to shatter my 6-year-old boy's innocence by breaking the news to him that there are bad people in the world who hurt little children. Before saying our nightly prayers together, I knelt at his bed Tuesday night and told him about the children who had been shot by a bad man. His brow crinkled and he stared at me hard. "The bad man shot the children, the bad man shot the children," he said over and over in disbelief. We first prayed that the three boys, the teenage counselor and the elderly receptionist would get better soon, and then we prayed that the man responsible for hurting them would be caught.

Fedell Caffey, a Schaumburg man described by one prosecutor as a "cold-blooded murderer of defenseless women and children," was convicted Tuesday of first-degree murder in the 1995 killings of Debra Evans of Addison and two of her children. The jury of six men and six women returned the verdict after deliberating for 5 1/2 hours. Caffey, 24, who showed no emotion when the verdict was read, became the third defendant to be convicted of the crime in which a full-term fetus was cut from Evans' womb and taken by the attackers.

A city that doesn't want police officers with "too high an IQ" has been sued by an applicant who was refused a job because of his high score on an intelligence test. In a complaint filed this week in U.S. District Court in New Haven, Conn., Robert Jordan claims the city of New London discriminated against him based on his intelligence and violated his constitutional rights. Jordan says Assistant City Manager Keith Harrigan, who oversees hiring for the city, told him, "We don't like to hire people that have too high an IQ to be cops in this city."

A 50-year-old man was critically injured following an explosion and fire Wednesday morning in the 2200 block of West 18th Place. Luis Alvarado suffered smoke inhalation and second-degree burns and was listed in serious condition in the burn unit at Cook County Hospital. Also injured were a 7th-grade student at St. Ann School and a firefighter battling the blaze. The injured pupil was apparently struck in the leg by a piece of flying glass on the way to the school, located across the street from the blast, and taken by his parents to their physician for treatment, a fire department spokesman said.

My two children were classmates of Steven Sahota, the 4-year-old from Palatine who was brutally murdered in December 1994. The day my children learned of Steven's murder, they came home very upset and frightened. My son, who was 4 years old at the time and a playmate of Steven's, was scared that the "bad man" who killed Steven would come to day care to hurt other children. I assured my son that the "bad man" would never hurt anyone again, because in the country we live in, "bad men" go to jail.

Stanley Elkin, 65, a highly-acclaimed novelist, won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1982 for "George Mills" and was a National Book Award finalist three times. His comic novel, "The Dick Gibson Show," was adapted in 1979 for the stage and performed here at the Ruth Page Auditorium. A resident of University City, Mo., he died Wednesday in Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. Mr. Elkin was also professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis. A native of Chicago, he grew up here and graduated from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana.

Woodstock had more headaches than weather, freeloaders and contraband drugs and alcohol. There was this most common, nagging annoyance of the '90s: parking. An estimated 10,000 vehicles-drivers armed with passes that promoters said guaranteed a space-were unable to get a spot due to crashers. The problem, compounded by an almost non-existent shuttle service, led to U-turns and hitching rides from long distances. The Chairman: Is the loss of U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski as Ways and Means chairman one reason for health care's problems in the House?

Riddick Bowe knew at the end of the 11th around, knew the world had changed forever for him, changed for the mean and soiled world of boxing, a game given the barest dignity by Evander Holyfield in his two years as heavyweight champion, a game about to get a new and little-known headmaster. "It was time for change," Bowe would say later. "I`m a bad man." Holyfield squinted through a swollen right eye, brushed at the blood seeping into his left eye from a cut on the lid. Holyfield felt his way back to his corner, while Bowe stayed in the middle of the ring motioning at his middle for the three heavyweight championship belts Holyfield had brought with him to the ring, one green, one violet, one black, all symbols of the toughest man on earth.

If Jim Harbaugh gets sacked by the Vikings Sunday, blame the gravy. The Vikings` pass rush has been rejuvenated by defensive line coach John Teerlinck, a Chicagoan who has Chris Doleman again leading the league in sacks with seven. Against Cincinnati last week, Doleman got two, and fellow starters Henry Thomas, Al Noga and John Randle one apiece. The Vikings always rush the passer well, but Teerlinck has provided renewed enthusiasm. He credits new head coach Dennis Green with setting the tone.

As the night mists roll over the dank Transylvanian escarpments, deep in the catacombed castle, a coffin slowly creaks open and a man rises to stalk his prey. He's back. Indeed, vampires are about to be everywhere. The revival of "Dark Shadows" (incomprehensible in plot, not to mention intent) is merely the leading edge. Coming up at long last is the film version of Anne Rice's "Interview With the Vampire," while Francis Ford Coppola's next film will be another adaptation of Bram Stoker's original novel "Dracula."